J B Hunt Transport Services Inc (JBHT) 2022 Q3 法說會逐字稿

Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for attending today's J.B. Hunt 3Q 2022 Earnings Conference Call. My name is Tia, and I will be your moderator for today's call. (Operator Instructions) I would now like to pass the conference over to your host, Brad Delco, Senior Vice President of Finance. You may proceed.

下午好，女士們，先生們。感謝您參加今天的 J.B. Hunt 2022 年第三季度收益電話會議。我的名字是 Tia，我將擔任今天電話會議的主持人。 （操作員說明）我現在想將會議轉交給您的主持人，財務高級副總裁 Brad Delco。你可以繼續。

Good afternoon. Before I introduce the speakers, I would like to take some time to provide some disclosures regarding forward-looking statements. This call may contain forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as expects, anticipates, intends, estimates or similar expressions are intended to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements are based on J.B. Hunt's current plans and expectations and involve risks and uncertainties that could cause future activities and results to be materially different from those set forth in the forward-looking statements. For information regarding risk factors, please refer to J.B. Hunt's annual report on Form 10-K and other reports and filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

下午好。在介紹演講者之前，我想花一些時間提供一些有關前瞻性陳述的披露。本次電話會議可能包含 1995 年《私人證券訴訟改革法案》含義內的前瞻性陳述。預期、預期、打算、估計或類似表達等詞語旨在識別這些前瞻性陳述。這些陳述基於 J.B. Hunt 目前的計劃和預期，並涉及可能導致未來活動和結果與前瞻性陳述中所述內容存在重大差異的風險和不確定性。有關風險因素的信息，請參閱 J.B. Hunt 的 10-K 表格年度報告以及其他報告和提交給證券交易委員會的文件。

Now I would like to introduce the speakers on today's call. This afternoon, I'm joined by our CEO, John Roberts; our President, Shelley Simpson, our CFO, John Kuhlow; Nick Hobbs, COO and President of Contract Services; Darren Field, President of Intermodal; and Brad Hicks, EVP of People and President of Highway Services. At this time, I would like to turn the call to our CEO, Mr. John Roberts, for some opening comments.

現在我想介紹一下今天電話會議的發言者。今天下午，我們的首席執行官約翰·羅伯茨 (John Roberts) 加入了我的行列；我們的總裁 Shelley Simpson，我們的首席財務官 John Kuhlow； Nick Hobbs，首席運營官兼合同服務總裁；多式聯運總裁 Darren Field； Brad Hicks，人力執行副總裁兼公路服務總裁。在這個時候，我想把電話轉給我們的首席執行官約翰·羅伯茨先生，請他發表一些開場白。

Thank you, Brad, and good afternoon. As we reflect on the performance of the overall business in the third quarter, we echo many of the same themes discussed on our last call with an intense focus on changes in the freight markets we serve. The results in many areas of our business achieved appropriate targets in light of the cyclical shift in market balance I've referenced last quarter. While some improvement has been seen in rail service and company hiring challenges, in particular with our driver force, we continue to face difficulties in equipment availability for growth and replacement, along with the uncertainty of the direction of macro conditions.

謝謝你，布拉德，下午好。當我們反思第三季度整體業務的表現時，我們呼應了我們上次電話會議中討論的許多相同主題，並高度關注我們所服務的貨運市場的變化。鑑於我上個季度提到的市場平衡的周期性變化，我們許多業務領域的業績都實現了適當的目標。雖然在鐵路服務和公司招聘挑戰方面已經看到一些改善，特別是在我們的驅動力方面，但我們繼續面臨增長和更換設備的困難，以及宏觀環境方向的不確定性。

Clearly, there are also areas of our business with opportunity for correction. That said, let me be clear, the businesses we've built, the changes we've implemented and the team's collective experience have and will continue to reveal themselves as value-enhancing catalysts for our customers, our company and our shareholders.

顯然，我們的業務領域也有修正的機會。也就是說，讓我明確一點，我們建立的業務、我們實施的變革以及團隊的集體經驗已經並將繼續顯示為我們的客戶、公司和股東的價值提升催化劑。

Let me address some of the points around the market dynamics referenced. Further evidence has presented itself over the course of the quarter that requires an increased level of caution and awareness on broader demand trends and economic activity. Data, experience and frequent dialogue with our customers will continue to guide us in this area. The complementary nature and diversification of our businesses will continue to serve us well in this changing market.

讓我談談所引用的市場動態的一些要點。在本季度的過程中出現了進一步的證據，需要提高對更廣泛的需求趨勢和經濟活動的謹慎和意識。數據、經驗和與客戶的頻繁對話將繼續指導我們在這一領域的發展。我們業務的互補性和多元化將繼續在這個不斷變化的市場中為我們提供良好的服務。

As mentioned earlier, rail service has shown real signs of improvement in both velocity and reliability during the quarter with positive momentum building, the most notable increase coming from our friends at the BNSF. We are encouraged by the trends and Darren will expand on this area in his remarks. I remain in active and regular dialogue with the senior leaders of our primary rail channels on opportunities and investments required to fully restore service levels needed to capture the opportunities presented with Intermodal.

如前所述，鐵路服務在本季度的速度和可靠性方面都顯示出真正的改善跡象，並形成了積極的勢頭，最顯著的增長來自我們在 BNSF 的朋友。我們對這些趨勢感到鼓舞，達倫將在他的講話中擴大這一領域。我仍然與我們主要鐵路渠道的高級領導人保持積極和定期的對話，討論充分恢復服務水平所需的機會和投資，以抓住多式聯運帶來的機會。

We are optimistic about the path forward with Intermodal and with all aspects of our collective services. Members of our leadership team are here and will cover areas of our business more specifically for you. But at this point, I would like to turn the call over for the first time to our new President, Ms. Shelley Simpson. Shelley?

我們對多式聯運以及我們集體服務的各個方面的前進道路持樂觀態度。我們的領導團隊成員在這裡，將為您更具體地涵蓋我們的業務領域。但在這一點上，我想第一次將電話轉給我們的新總統雪萊辛普森女士。雪萊？

Thank you, John, and good afternoon. First off, I'd like to start by saying how humbled and excited I am to be stepping into this new role at J.B. Hunt. Over the years, you've heard me talk about various areas of the business that I've had the honor to lead. I approach this new position with the same passion for our people, all nearly 38,000 employees at J.B. Hunt, and for delivering exceptional service and value to our customers.

謝謝你，約翰，下午好。首先，我想先說我為能在 J.B. Hunt 擔任這個新角色感到多麼謙卑和興奮。多年來，您聽過我談論我有幸領導的業務的各個領域。我以同樣的熱情對待我們的員工，J.B. Hunt 的近 38,000 名員工，並為我們的客戶提供卓越的服務和價值。

As John spoke about some of the current indicators that are present in our industry, I want to remind everyone of our say/do culture. And with that, let me share with you what our go-does or priorities are right now for us as an organization. Over my 28 years at the company, I've been fortunate to have worked with some great leaders. As I sit here today, I'm reminded of a saying our Chairman would say and that is, "Don't starve your opportunities."

當約翰談到我們行業中存在的一些當前指標時，我想提醒大家我們的說/做文化。有了這個，讓我與您分享我們作為一個組織現在的工作或優先事項。在公司工作的 28 年裡，我很幸運能與一些偉大的領導者共事。當我今天坐在這裡時，我想起了我們的主席會說的一句話，那就是“不要餓死你的機會”。

As an organization, we recognize unique and significant opportunities in the marketplace that have been and are being presented to us. As a result, we will remain committed to disciplined investments in our company foundations, which I spoke to last quarter. That is our people you trust, technology that empowers and capacity to deliver. When we make the right investments in the right people, give them the proper tools to equip and empower them to deliver value and exceptional service to our customers, all of our stakeholders should reap the benefit. So priority one, remain committed to disciplined long-term investments in and for our future growth, and that starts first and foremost with our people.

作為一個組織，我們認識到市場上已經和正在呈現給我們的獨特而重要的機會。因此，我們將繼續致力於對我們的公司基金會進行有紀律的投資，我在上個季度談到了這一點。那是您信任的我們的員工、賦能的技術和交付能力。當我們對正確的人進行正確的投資，為他們提供適當的工具來裝備和授權他們為我們的客戶提供價值和卓越的服務時，我們所有的利益相關者都應該從中受益。因此，首要任務是繼續致力於對我們未來的增長進行有紀律的長期投資，這首先要從我們的員工開始。

Over the last 2 months or so, I've traveled and met with our people in the field and across the organization, and I asked each of them the same question, how can you, in your role, drive more value for our customers? I'm encouraged by the feedback I received, the energy of our people and the rallying around just that simple question. As an organization, we need to deliver the greatest value to our customers by providing unmatched service at a fair and equitable return. So much across our organization goes into that equation from being cost competitive, being quick to adapt, making the customer experience exceptional and making sure we are in a position to say yes to our customers' growing needs. So priority number two, deliver exceptional value for our customers across the entire organization.

在過去 2 個月左右的時間裡，我在現場和整個組織中旅行並會見了我們的員工，我問了他們每個人同樣的問題，你如何才能在你的角色中為我們的客戶創造更多價值？我收到的反饋、我們員工的活力以及圍繞這個簡單問題的團結使我深受鼓舞。作為一個組織，我們需要以公平公正的回報提供無與倫比的服務，從而為我們的客戶提供最大的價值。從成本競爭力、快速適應、提供卓越的客戶體驗到確保我們能夠對客戶不斷增長的需求說“是”，我們整個組織的很多方面都體現了這一點。所以第二個優先事項是為整個組織的客戶提供卓越的價值。

Finally, I believe in something John has always shared with us, and that is, growth is oxygen. It provides opportunities for our people in the organization to also grow, develop and build meaningful and lasting careers. We have a deep and tenured bench of talent across our organization who are leading and developing our future leaders. Having a disciplined approach to our capital allocation process supports and funds the investments we make in our people, technology and capacity to better serve our customers. This recipe should continue to support our future growth and value we create for our shareholders.

最後，我相信約翰一直與我們分享的東西，那就是成長就是氧氣。它為我們組織中的員工提供了成長、發展和建立有意義和持久的職業的機會。我們在整個組織中擁有一批資深且長期的人才，他們正在領導和培養我們未來的領導者。對我們的資本分配流程採取嚴格的方法支持和資助我們對人員、技術和能力的投資，以更好地為我們的客戶服務。這個配方應該繼續支持我們為股東創造的未來增長和價值。

So I'll leave you with one last priority, to deliver strong value for our shareholders. As John alluded to in his comments, we see further evidence of a shift in marketplace dynamics that will require us to remain fluid in our approach to managing our business. We often reference that word throughout the pandemic as challenges and uncertainties were present, which feels appropriate at this time as well. Our business leaders will cover our plans with you in more detail. And that concludes my comments, so I'd now like to turn the call over to our CFO, John Kuhlow.

因此，我將把最後一個優先事項留給您，為我們的股東提供強大的價值。正如約翰在他的評論中提到的那樣，我們看到了市場動態變化的進一步證據，這將要求我們在管理業務的方法上保持靈活。我們經常在整個大流行中提到這個詞，因為存在挑戰和不確定性，這在這個時候也很合適。我們的業務負責人將與您更詳細地介紹我們的計劃。我的評論到此結束，所以我現在想將電話轉給我們的首席財務官 John Kuhlow。

Thank you, Shelley, and good afternoon, everyone. My comments today will be brief and will cover our recent performance in the quarter on a consolidated basis. I'll also provide a quick update on our CapEx plans. Overall, we are pleased with the results of the quarter on a consolidated basis. As John remarked, we hit targets in areas of our business and fell short in others, but that highlights the benefits of our diversified and complementary model.

謝謝你，雪萊，大家下午好。我今天的評論將是簡短的，並將涵蓋我們最近在本季度的綜合表現。我還將提供有關我們資本支出計劃的快速更新。總體而言，我們對本季度的綜合業績感到滿意。正如 John 所說，我們在業務領域實現了目標，而在其他領域則達不到目標，但這凸顯了我們多元化和互補模式的優勢。

On a consolidated basis, revenue grew 22% year-over-year, operating income grew 32% and GAAP earnings per share grew 37%. From a cost perspective, we continue to experience inflationary pressures across most areas of our business but primarily around labor, equipment, including both parts and labor and in the area of claims. We are keeping a close eye on receivables, credit and bad debt as economic conditions change, and we'll continue to monitor the environment and manage accordingly.

綜合來看，收入同比增長 22%，營業收入增長 32%，GAAP 每股收益增長 37%。從成本的角度來看，我們在大部分業務領域繼續面臨通脹壓力，但主要圍繞勞動力、設備（包括零件和勞動力）以及索賠領域。隨著經濟狀況的變化，我們正在密切關注應收賬款、信用和壞賬，我們將繼續監控環境並進行相應的管理。

We purchased just shy of 350,000 shares in the quarter, bringing our year-to-date spend on repurchases to approximately $300 million. We will continue to explore share repurchases going forward as opportunities are presented, and we remain committed to buybacks as a capital management tool with support from our Board.

我們在本季度購買了近 350,000 股股票，使我們年初至今的回購支出達到約 3 億美元。隨著機會的出現，我們將繼續探索股票回購，我們將繼續致力於在董事會的支持下將回購作為一種資本管理工具。

Our balance sheet remains strong with net leverage moderately below our target of 1x trailing 12 months EBITDA. During the quarter, we paid off $350 million of senior notes and entered into a new $1.5 billion credit facility, increasing our flexibility and overall liquidity for future needs. On net CapEx, we spent just over $1 billion year-to-date and expect to fall short about $1.5 billion plan for the year.

我們的資產負債表保持強勁，淨槓桿略低於我們 1 倍過去 12 個月 EBITDA 的目標。在本季度，我們還清了 3.5 億美元的優先票據，並獲得了 15 億美元的新信貸額度，從而提高了我們對未來需求的靈活性和整體流動性。在淨資本支出上，我們今年迄今的支出剛剛超過 10 億美元，預計今年將低於約 15 億美元的計劃。

Our capital expenditures in the future will largely be dependent upon business needs, but levels may remain elevated as our replacement needs are high, given equipment delivery delays and supply chain constraints experienced over the last 2 years. This concludes my remarks, and I'll now turn it over to Nick.

我們未來的資本支出將在很大程度上取決於業務需求，但鑑於過去 2 年經歷的設備交付延遲和供應鏈限制，我們的更換需求很高，因此水平可能會保持較高水平。我的發言到此結束，現在我將把它交給尼克。

Thank you, John. Good afternoon. I'll review the performance of our Dedicated and Final Mile segments and update you on other areas of focus across our operations. I'll start with Dedicated. Demand for our professional outsourced private-fleet solutions remained strong as we added more than 450 trucks to the fleet during the quarter. While our backlog remains strong, we have some moderation to more normalized levels after 2 years of significantly above-normal trends.

謝謝你，約翰。下午好。我將審查我們的專用和最後一英里部分的表現，並向您介紹我們運營中其他重點領域的最新情況。我將從專用開始。由於我們在本季度向車隊增加了 450 多輛卡車，因此對我們的專業外包私人車隊解決方案的需求依然強勁。雖然我們的積壓仍然很強勁，但經過 2 年明顯高於正常水平的趨勢後，我們的水平有所緩和到更正常的水平。

We sold approximately 280 trucks worth of new business during the course of the quarter, bringing our year-to-date total just shy of 1,700 trucks. As a reminder, this is well above our long-term guidance of 1,000 to 1,200 trucks per year through just the first 3 quarters of the year. The performance of the business continues to meet expectations as mature accounts are managed diligently and start-up accounts are progressing as expected. We continue to see pressure on equipment and maintenance-related expenses and that remains an area of focus.

我們在本季度售出了價值約 280 輛卡車的新業務，使我們年初至今的總銷量接近 1,700 輛卡車。提醒一下，這遠高於我們在今年前三個季度每年生產 1,000 至 1,200 輛卡車的長期指導。由於成熟賬戶得到認真管理，初創賬戶按預期進展，業務業績繼續達到預期。我們繼續看到設備和維護相關費用的壓力，這仍然是一個重點領域。

Overall, I'm pleased with the performance and remain excited about executing our plan to grow the business as we deliver exceptional value to our customers.

總體而言，我對業績感到滿意，並對執行我們的業務發展計劃感到興奮，因為我們為客戶提供了卓越的價值。

Shifting to Final Mile. As we've discussed for the last several quarters, our focus has been on delivering exceptional service but ensuring the quality -- revenue is aligned with the value we deliver to customers. While much work has been done, I am pleased with the progress. Much work remains though. Overall, we saw good demand for Final Mile Services in the quarter in our off-price retail channel with fulfillment as well as the appliance and furniture delivery market.

轉移到最後一英里。正如我們在過去幾個季度中所討論的那樣，我們的重點一直是提供卓越的服務，但要確保質量——收入與我們為客戶提供的價值保持一致。雖然已經完成了很多工作，但我對取得的進展感到滿意。不過還有很多工作要做。總體而言，我們在本季度的低價零售渠道以及電器和家具交付市場中看到了對 Final Mile 服務的良好需求。

Similar to DCS, the sales activity is moderating some and we will manage accordingly. Going forward, we remain focused on our profit improvement initiatives while investing in a differentiated service experience for our customers to deliver value to each of them.

與 DCS 類似，銷售活動有所放緩，我們將進行相應管理。展望未來，我們將繼續專注於提高利潤的計劃，同時投資於為我們的客戶提供差異化的服務體驗，為他們每個人創造價值。

Closing with some general comments on operations. We have seen improvements in the areas around professional driver recruiting and retention, although it elevated cost. That said, we have not seen much improvement in equipment availability, which continues to put pressure on our maintenance cost. We are still holding trades on several thousand trucks, which were required to support our growth over the last 2 years. We will make progress in this area over the next year, but we will be dependent upon how much equipment is needed to support our growth.

以對操作的一些一般性評論結束。我們已經看到在專業司機招聘和保留方面有所改善，儘管它提高了成本。也就是說，我們沒有看到設備可用性有太大改善，這繼續給我們的維護成本帶來壓力。我們仍然持有數千輛卡車的交易，這是過去兩年支持我們增長所必需的。明年我們將在這一領域取得進展，但我們將取決於需要多少設備來支持我們的增長。

That concludes my remarks so I'll turn it over to Darren.

我的發言到此結束，所以我將把它交給達倫。

Thank you, Nick, and hello to everyone on the call. I'll review performance of our Intermodal business, including an update on network fluidity and the opportunities we have to deliver exceptional capacity and value to our customers. I'll start by reviewing the performance from the quarter. Demand for Intermodal capacity continued to support growth in our business despite challenges related to rail velocity, customer unloading activity and overall supply chain uncertainties facing our customers. Volumes for the quarter were up 4% year-over-year and by month were plus 4% in July, plus 6% in August and down 2% in September. Today, so far in October, volumes have rebounded from weaker demand in September.

謝謝你，尼克，大家好。我將回顧我們多式聯運業務的表現，包括網絡流動性的更新以及我們必須為客戶提供卓越容量和價值的機會。我將從回顧本季度的表現開始。儘管我們的客戶面臨鐵路速度、客戶卸貨活動和整體供應鏈不確定性方面的挑戰，但對多式聯運運力的需求繼續支持我們的業務增長。本季度的銷量同比增長 4%，按月計算，7 月份增長 4%，8 月份增長 6%，9 月份下降 2%。今天，10 月份到目前為止，銷量已從 9 月份疲軟的需求中反彈。

Last quarter, we discussed the challenges we were facing from a rail network velocity perspective, and I expressed confidence and a bit of optimism that it would get better. While we are not back to where we need to be, I am pleased to say that we saw a meaningful improvement in velocity and performance from BNSF as the quarter progressed, but in particular, in mid-August and throughout the remainder of the quarter. We continue to work with our primary channel providers at the most senior levels to improve our service quality and reliability, which presents our organization significant opportunities that I will address next.

上個季度，我們從鐵路網絡速度的角度討論了我們面臨的挑戰，我表達了對它會變得更好的信心和一點樂觀。雖然我們還沒有回到我們需要的地方，但我很高興地說，隨著本季度的進展，我們看到 BNSF 的速度和性能有了顯著的改善，特別是在 8 月中旬和本季度的剩餘時間。我們將繼續與最高級別的主要渠道提供商合作，以提高我們的服務質量和可靠性，這為我們的組織提供了重要的機會，我將在接下來討論這些機會。

Recognizing John's comments about the shift in market balance, we remain confident in our ability to deliver value to our customers with our Intermodal service offering. With greater velocity in our network, we are presented with an opportunity to remove meaningful costs in our business due to lack of productivity. As I've said before, our customers will participate in those savings while also benefiting from faster and more reliable service. We think this puts us in a position to be able to deliver meaningful value for our customers as they look for cheaper, more efficient and the most sustainable way of moving their freight.

認識到約翰關於市場平衡轉變的評論，我們仍然對我們通過多式聯運服務為客戶創造價值的能力充滿信心。隨著我們網絡的更快速度，我們有機會消除由於缺乏生產力而在我們的業務中產生的有意義的成本。正如我之前所說，我們的客戶將參與到這些節省中，同時也受益於更快、更可靠的服務。我們認為這使我們能夠為我們的客戶提供有意義的價值，因為他們正在尋找更便宜、更高效和最可持續的貨運方式。

As we stand here today, I'm confident that customers have greater demand for our capacity as speed and reliability improve. And I believe we have a greater line of sight to that now than at any other point over the last 2 years.

今天我們站在這裡，我相信隨著速度和可靠性的提高，客戶對我們的容量有更大的需求。我相信我們現在比過去 2 年的任何其他時間都擁有更大的視野。

In closing, I would like to drive home the point that our business and our rail channel providers all benefit from service quality improvements, and we remain motivated and incentivized to deliver it. We have significant productivity and cost saving opportunities that will present themselves in our dray operations as rail service quality makes further improvements. I look forward to discussing our progress in this area in the quarters ahead.

最後，我想強調一點，我們的業務和我們的鐵路渠道供應商都受益於服務質量的提高，我們仍然有動力和動力去提供它。隨著鐵路服務質量的進一步提高，我們擁有顯著的生產力和成本節約機會，這些機會將在我們的干車運營中體現出來。我期待在未來幾個季度討論我們在這方面的進展。

That concludes my prepared remarks. So I'll turn it over to Brad Hicks.

我準備好的發言到此結束。所以我會把它交給布拉德希克斯。

Thank you, Darren, and good afternoon, everyone. I'll review the performance of our Integrated Capacity Solutions and Truckload segments, what we collectively call Highway Services. I'll also provide an update on J.B. Hunt 360.

謝謝你，達倫，大家下午好。我將回顧我們的綜合容量解決方案和卡車裝載部分的表現，我們統稱為公路服務。我還將提供有關 J.B. Hunt 360 的更新。

Starting off with ICS, top line revenue was down 11% comprised of an 8% decline in volume and a 4% decline in revenue per load.

從 ICS 開始，收入下降 11%，其中銷量下降 8%，每次負載收入下降 4%。

Diving into those numbers a little deeper, truckload volume in the quarter was down only 1%. Similar to last quarter, we continue to see pressure in the spot or transactional market and volume but also in rate and margin. Similar to last quarter, our published or contractual volume was up double digits on a percentage basis year-over-year in the quarter, offset by our spot or transactional business down double digits.

深入研究這些數字，本季度的卡車貨運量僅下降了 1%。與上個季度類似，我們繼續看到現貨或交易市場和交易量以及利率和利潤率方面的壓力。與上一季度類似，我們公佈的或合同量在本季度同比增長兩位數，被我們的現貨或交易業務下降兩位數所抵消。

We continue to manage the business to outperform the market, and we accomplished that against our benchmarks during the quarter. As John discussed, we are seeing a shift in balance in the market or a pivot, as I'd like to say, and we are navigating through that, but remain focused on our long-term goals and targets. I remain confident in our people and our platform, J.B. Hunt 360, to deliver an efficient and valued service offering to our customers.

我們繼續管理業務以超越市場，並且我們在本季度根據我們的基準實現了這一目標。正如約翰所討論的，正如我想說的那樣，我們正在看到市場平衡的轉變或一個支點，我們正在經歷這個過程，但仍然專注於我們的長期目標和目標。我仍然相信我們的員工和我們的平台 J.B. Hunt 360 能夠為我們的客戶提供高效和有價值的服務。

Shifting over to Truckload. Similar to last quarter, we continue to see steady and solid demand for our drop trailer network service offering we call J.B. Hunt 360box. Volume grew 13% versus the prior year quarter. We continue to believe customers are finding value in the blending of their live network and drop trailer network capacity needs, essentially offering customers the flexibility and ease of use of a drop trailer for use in less dense freight lanes while also offering access to the vast amount of capacity available on our J.B. Hunt 360 platform for freight that would typically be handled by large asset-based carriers. One simple and seamless solution provided by experienced managers of trailing assets and powered by one of the largest capacity sourcing platforms, J.B. Hunt 360, which I'll touch on next.

轉移到卡車裝載。與上個季度類似，我們繼續看到對我們稱為 J.B. Hunt 360box 的拖車網絡服務產品的穩定和穩固的需求。與去年同期相比，銷量增長了 13%。我們仍然相信客戶在他們的實時網絡和掛車網絡容量需求的融合中發現了價值，從本質上為客戶提供了在不太密集的貨運通道中使用的掛車的靈活性和易用性，同時還提供了大量的訪問我們的 J.B. Hunt 360 平台上的可用運力通常由大型資產承運人處理。由經驗豐富的追踪資產經理提供的一種簡單且無縫的解決方案，由最大的容量採購平台之一 J.B. Hunt 360 提供支持，我將在接下來介紹。

We continue to see the strong usage and activity on our multimodal digital freight platform, J.B. Hunt 360. As we've entered this new market paradigm, we are seeing the expected shifts in usage, including increased offers per load, but also carrier stickiness and measurable data on our ability to buy capacity against the market. Being a little more transparent, over the last 2 years, our customers relied on our platform to find capacity when it was extremely difficult and challenging to source. We were the go-to, and in this market pivot, admittedly, we may have had too much exposure to spot and project-related business. We will make adjustments and pivot ourselves where needed, but remain confident to investments in our people, technology and assets to support our long-term growth.

我們繼續在我們的多式聯運數字貨運平台 J.B. Hunt 360 上看到強勁的使用和活動。隨著我們進入這個新的市場範式，我們看到了預期的使用變化，包括增加每次裝載的報價，以及承運人粘性和關於我們針對市場購買產能的能力的可衡量數據。在過去的 2 年裡，我們的客戶更加透明地依賴我們的平台來尋找容量，而這在採購方面非常困難和具有挑戰性。我們是首選，在這個市場支點中，誠然，我們可能對現貨和項目相關業務有太多的敞口。我們將在需要的地方進行調整和調整，但對我們的人員、技術和資產的投資保持信心，以支持我們的長期增長。

That concludes my comments so I'll turn it back to Brad Delco to give instructions before the operator opens the call for Q&A.

我的評論到此結束，因此我將在接線員打開問答電話之前將其轉回給 Brad Delco 以提供指示。

Thanks, Brad. I'd just like to remind all the participants on the call that we're going to do one question and then move on to the next since we have such a long list of folks. So with that, Tia, we're ready to open it up for questions.

謝謝，布拉德。我只想提醒電話會議上的所有參與者，我們將做一個問題，然後繼續下一個問題，因為我們有這麼長的人名單。有了這個，蒂亞，我們準備好提出問題了。

(Operator Instructions) The first question is from the line of Scott Group with Wolfe Research.

（操作員說明）第一個問題來自 Scott Group 和 Wolfe Research。

Darren, just wanted to talk on the Intermodal side. Do you think -- was September impacted by rail strike noise or demand? And then maybe any color on how you think about fourth quarter volume? And then just a big picture question. It does feel like Intermodal pricing for now is holding up a lot better than Truckload but maybe that's impacting -- having some negative impact on demand.

達倫，只是想談談多式聯運方面。您認為 9 月是否受到鐵路罷工噪音或需求的影響？然後可能對您如何看待第四季度的銷量有任何看法？然後只是一個大問題。感覺現在的多式聯運定價比卡車裝載要好得多，但也許這正在產生影響——對需求產生一些負面影響。

So I guess my real question is, how are you approaching bid season? Are you more focused on market share? And if volumes are up and fluid is up but rates are down next year, do you think you can grow Intermodal EBIT next year? I know there's a bunch but whatever you could take.

所以我想我真正的問題是，你如何接近投標季節？你更關注市場份額嗎？如果銷量增加，流動性增加，但明年費率下降，您認為明年可以增加多式聯運 EBIT 嗎？我知道有一堆，但你可以拿什麼。

Scott, this is Brad. I think I counted 5 questions there, and I'll just -- we'll turn it over to Darren and let him start talking.

斯科特，這是布拉德。我想我在那里數了 5 個問題，我會——我們會把它交給達倫，讓他開始說話。

Okay. First of all, I don't want to spend all afternoon talking about potential rail labor situation. Look, September was obviously impacted by rail labor or the threat of that. Every year, we have network challenges that we don't always call out in these sorts of calls. And in some ways, the results in September was similar to a bad weather event. It was short term in nature. Volumes were improving coming out of August. The rail labor situation was probably one of a couple of several things that might have influenced customers. And that came and went, and volumes recovered back to where they were prior to that. So I do think that customer demand right now is -- was showing improvement in August and it continues to today.

好的。首先，我不想整個下午都在談論潛在的鐵路勞工情況。看，9 月顯然受到鐵路勞工或威脅的影響。每年，我們都會遇到網絡挑戰，但我們並不總是在此類電話中提出這些挑戰。在某些方面，9 月份的結果類似於惡劣的天氣事件。這本質上是短期的。從 8 月份開始，銷量正在改善。鐵路勞工狀況可能是可能影響客戶的幾件事之一。來來去去，交易量恢復到之前的水平。因此，我確實認為現在的客戶需求在 8 月份有所改善，並且一直持續到今天。

As far as pricing goes, I think we're just way too early in the bid cycle to kind of know what to predict there. Obviously, the bid cycle is important to us. We continue to dialogue with our customers about ways that we can take cost out of our system together. And as we have that dialogue, we fully anticipate the customer to get a benefit when we work together to do that. I've said that for the better part of the year now and still believe that strongly. I don't know where to even go next. I'm just going to stop there.

就定價而言，我認為我們在投標週期中還為時過早，無法知道在那裡預測什麼。顯然，投標週期對我們很重要。我們將繼續與客戶就如何共同降低系統成本進行對話。當我們進行對話時，我們完全期望客戶在我們共同努力時會從中受益。我在今年的大部分時間裡都這麼說過，但我仍然堅信這一點。我什至不知道下一步該去哪裡。我只是要停在那裡。

(inaudible)

（聽不清）

Thanks, Scott. We'll try to get -- I bet you we'll get some of those other questions from some next callers. Tia, next question, please.

謝謝，斯科特。我們會盡力得到——我敢打賭，我們會從下一個來電者那裡得到一些其他問題。蒂亞，下一個問題，請。

The next question is from the line of Chris Wetherbee with Citi.

下一個問題來自花旗的 Chris Wetherbee。

So maybe sticking on Intermodal, maybe want to sort of understand the comments around the cost sharing and savings that could happen in sort of a more fluid rail environment. So, I guess, maybe the specific question is, do you think about this more on a profit per load basis where maybe you can maintain profit per load as your costs come down, some of that share? Or is it more on a margin basis?

因此，也許堅持多式聯運，也許想了解有關在更加流動的鐵路環境中可能發生的成本分擔和節省的評論。所以，我想，也許具體的問題是，你是否更多地在每次負載的利潤基礎上考慮這一點，也許你可以在成本下降時保持每次負載的利潤，其中一些份額？還是更多地以保證金為基礎？

I guess I just want to make sure I'm sort of understanding how you guys are thinking about that. And certainly, probably growth comes into effect, to some extent, next year as well leaning into that to some extent. So I know it's a little bit sort of a loose question but I'm kind of curious how you guys are thinking about profit per load relative to margin growth next year.

我想我只是想確保我有點理解你們是怎麼想的。當然，在某種程度上，增長可能會生效，明年也會在某種程度上受到影響。所以我知道這是一個有點鬆散的問題，但我很好奇你們是如何看待與明年利潤率增長相關的每負荷利潤的。

Well, certainly, we contemplate the productivity we can generate on a container in a month. That certainly drives some of our thought process. So as we can move more loads on a container in a month as velocity improves, there's some benefit there that we would anticipate sharing with our customers. We're very focused on ROIC-only margin as an output. And as we layer on more volume and look for ways to grow, we would anticipate that there's a benefit in our underlying cost from that.

好吧，當然，我們考慮在一個月內可以在容器上產生的生產力。這肯定會推動我們的一些思考過程。因此，隨著速度的提高，我們可以在一個月內在集裝箱上移動更多負載，因此我們預計會與客戶分享一些好處。我們非常關注僅 ROIC 保證金作為輸出。隨著我們增加銷量並尋找增長方式，我們預計我們的潛在成本會從中受益。

And I would just highlight and tried to in some of the prepared comments, our drayage activity can also get a productivity benefit out of improved rail service. We would anticipate an improvement in the productivity of our drivers and our tractor resources as well as rail service improves. And that, too, is something that we would anticipate our customers can benefit from.

我只想在一些準備好的評論中強調並嘗試，我們的拖車活動也可以從改善鐵路服務中獲得生產力收益。我們預計我們的司機的生產力和我們的拖拉機資源以及鐵路服務將得到改善。這也是我們預計我們的客戶可以從中受益的東西。

The next question is from the line of Amit Mehrotra for Deutsche Bank.

下一個問題來自德意志銀行的 Amit Mehrotra。

Hi, everyone. Darren, can you just talk about how bid compliance maybe has trended over the course of this year? I mean, obviously, truck spot rates have declined significantly, but the spread between Intermodal Contract and Truckload Contract is still pretty wide. But the spot market is a lot looser but rail service has gotten better. I'm just trying to understand if there's anything that you could observe in terms of bid compliance and maybe give us a sense of the psychology of kind of the -- what the customer shippers are thinking.

大家好。達倫，你能談談今年投標合規的趨勢嗎？我的意思是，很明顯，卡車即期費率已經顯著下降，但多式聯運合同和卡車裝載合同之間的價差仍然很大。但是現貨市場要寬鬆很多，但鐵路服務已經變得更好。我只是想了解您是否可以在投標合規方面觀察到任何事情，並可能讓我們了解客戶托運人的想法。

And then just related, piggybacking on Chris' question a little bit around, I want to understand what the cyclicality of Intermodal profits are on your view. I mean, I would say that there are a lot of investors out there that look at Intermodal profits up 65%, 70% versus 2019. I think what you guys did this quarter was an all-time record. How do you answer some of the investor concerns that, hey, a lot of this is attributable to a pricing cycle, and when that's over, we're going back to a profit per load in the [200s] instead of the [400s] where you are today. If you can just answer those couple of questions, that would be great.

然後只是相關，順便提一下克里斯的問題，我想了解您認為多式聯運利潤的周期性是什麼。我的意思是，我想說有很多投資者認為多式聯運的利潤與 2019 年相比增長了 65% 和 70%。我認為你們本季度所做的事情是歷史記錄。您如何回答一些投資者的擔憂，嘿，這在很大程度上歸因於定價週期，當這結束時，我們將回到 [200s] 而不是 [400s] 的每負載利潤你今天在哪裡。如果你能回答這兩個問題，那就太好了。

Well, I'll start on the bid compliance. I think that somewhere in 2020 and '21, we've highlighted that bid compliance deteriorated from our previous marks and somewhere in the 60% to 70% range of an award. And maybe in prior terms, it would hover between 70% and 80%. I think that your question around spot capacity influencing that, we've been in this 60% to 70% range for the better part of 2 years. And I would not say that anything this summer or more recent with truckload spot prices falling, impacting customer bid compliance in our Intermodal business.

好吧，我將從投標合規性開始。我認為，在 2020 年和 21 年的某個時候，我們已經強調投標合規性從我們之前的分數下降到了 60% 到 70% 的範圍內。也許在以前的條件下，它會徘徊在 70% 到 80% 之間。我認為你關於現貨容量的問題會影響這一點，我們在兩年的大部分時間裡一直處於這個 60% 到 70% 的範圍內。我不會說今年夏天或更近的卡車現貨價格下跌，影響我們多式聯運業務的客戶投標合規性。

I don't believe we're actually seeing that, so I don't know how much of an influencer that is. Certainly, truckload pricing will always be an influencer to some degree at Intermodal, but it's not the only influencer of it. And to investors concerned about or that to your second question, I would just say, historically, Intermodal prices haven't fallen and haven't moved to the magnitude that truckload rates maybe have at times. And the ability -- what's different this cycle is that ability for us to shed costs that I've highlighted.

我不相信我們真的看到了這一點，所以我不知道有多少影響者。當然，在多式聯運中，整車定價在某種程度上總是會產生影響，但它並不是唯一的影響因素。對於擔心或第二個問題的投資者，我只想說，從歷史上看，多式聯運價格並沒有下降，也沒有達到卡車裝載率有時可能達到的程度。還有能力——這個週期的不同之處在於我們能夠削減我已經強調的成本。

I mean, I think that the pricing strength of these last 1.5 years of pricing activity is because all of our costs are up so much. And I mean that's J.B. Hunt's cost, that's our rail providers' cost and it certainly is drayage activity in the industry, equipment costs more. It's everywhere you look, there were really significant cost increases. And so to me, that's one of the biggest differences moving forward.

我的意思是，我認為過去 1.5 年定價活動的定價優勢是因為我們所有的成本都上漲了很多。我的意思是，這是 J.B. Hunt 的成本，這是我們的鐵路供應商的成本，而且肯定是行業中的拖運活動，設備成本更高。隨處可見，成本確實顯著增加。所以對我來說，這是向前發展的最大差異之一。

How does the industry shed some of that cost? And productivity is a big part of that. So some of our ability to move in that area really depends on how much additional productivity we can get out of our resources, both our assets and our people.

該行業如何降低部分成本？生產力是其中很大一部分。因此，我們在該領域的一些能力實際上取決於我們可以從我們的資源中獲得多少額外的生產力，包括我們的資產和我們的員工。

The next question comes from the line of Justin Long with Stephens.

下一個問題來自 Justin Long 和 Stephens 的對話。

So it sounds like rail service got significantly better over the course of the quarter. So I was curious if you could share where box turns are running today, just to put some numbers around that comment. And then Darren, you said things have snapped back from an Intermodal volume perspective in October. Can you quantify where volumes are running quarter-to-date?

因此，聽起來鐵路服務在本季度明顯好轉。所以我很好奇你是否可以分享今天的盒子轉彎在哪裡運行，只是為了在評論周圍加上一些數字。然後是達倫，你說從 10 月份的多式聯運量角度來看，事情已經迅速恢復。您能否量化本季度迄今為止的成交量？

Well, I don't know that I can clarify where volumes are running quarter-to-date. What I would just tell you is we saw that -- maybe I'll say it like this. September ran minus 2%. You heard that in my prepared comments. I think that had we not had a disruption from the potential of a rail strike, volumes in September would have been more between 3% and 4% positive. And I think that we're back in line with where we were running throughout the quarter without that disruption. So I'll just answer that question that way.

好吧，我不知道我可以澄清季度至今的成交量在哪裡。我只想告訴你的是我們看到了——也許我會這樣說。 9 月下跌 2%。你在我準備好的評論中聽到了這一點。我認為，如果我們沒有受到鐵路罷工的影響，9 月份的交易量會增加 3% 到 4% 之間。而且我認為我們在沒有中斷的情況下回到了整個季度的運行狀態。所以我就這樣回答這個問題。

In terms of box turns, for the quarter, box turns were, hang on a sec, 1.5 , so nowhere near where we would anticipate or expect our box turns to improve to. We called out that velocity really began to improve in the second half of August and continued to improve throughout September. And I just -- there will be somewhat of a lag as volume -- as velocity improves to the onboarding of new volume that our customers want to see and want to gain confidence in our ability to sustain that velocity and service performance.

就本季度的箱體轉彎而言，箱體轉彎時間為 1.5 秒，因此遠未達到我們預期或期望我們的箱體轉彎改善到的程度。我們指出，速度在 8 月下半月真正開始改善，並在整個 9 月繼續改善。而且我只是 - 隨著速度的提高，我們的客戶希望看到並希望對我們維持這種速度和服務性能的能力充滿信心，因此速度會有所滯後。

So we didn't experience any real benefits from that service and velocity improvements during those 6 weeks in Q3 in terms of volume and you had a lot of noise there that I just mentioned related to volume in September. So as we go through December and as we continue to highlight benefits from faster velocity to our customers and as we go through the bid season, we absolutely do anticipate an improvement in the box turns.

因此，在第三季度的那 6 週內，我們並沒有從服務和速度改進中獲得任何真正的好處，就數量而言，我剛才提到的與 9 月份的數量有關的噪音很大。因此，隨著我們度過 12 月，隨著我們繼續向我們的客戶強調更快的速度帶來的好處，並且隨著我們經歷投標季節，我們絕對確實預計轉機率會有所改善。

The next question comes from the line of Jon Chappell with Evercore ISI.

下一個問題來自於 Evercore ISI 的 Jon Chappell。

Nick, I wanted to ask you about DCS. You've had like 6 straight quarters now of pretty breakneck growth on the truck count. And you've been onboarding a lot and there's start-up costs associated with it. Your comments about seeing some signs of slowing in demand, does this give you the opportunity now to kind of let some of that recent start-up business reach the maturation stage? And maybe if we see a little bit of a slowdown on the top line growth, we can now start to see the margin expansion in that business through 2023?

尼克，我想問你關於 DCS 的事。卡車數量已經連續 6 個季度實現了驚人的增長。而且你已經入職很多，並且有與之相關的啟動成本。您對看到一些需求放緩跡象的評論，這是否讓您現在有機會讓一些最近的初創企業達到成熟階段？也許如果我們看到收入增長略有放緩，我們現在可以開始看到該業務到 2023 年的利潤率增長？

That's a good question. I would say typically, if our sales volume slows down, our start-ups diminish, you would see our margins improve. But we're facing a couple of headwinds. One, fuel cost is up and that dilutes our margin a little bit. But additionally, our maintenance cost is sky high because of all the growth we've added. We've kept trucks longer and so that's increased our maintenance. If I felt that we could get that fixed next year, I would say yes.

這是個好問題。我通常會說，如果我們的銷量放緩，我們的初創企業減少，你會看到我們的利潤率提高。但我們面臨著一些不利因素。第一，燃料成本上升，這稍微稀釋了我們的利潤。但此外，由於我們添加的所有增長，我們的維護成本非常高。我們將卡車保留的時間更長，因此增加了我們的維護。如果我覺得我們明年可以解決這個問題，我會說是的。

But in talking with the manufacturers, and we're even adding a third OEM to our mix to try to help us, we're not going to have it solved as they see demand going forward. So we're going to be carrying used trucks all through next year, not to the level this year. So normal times, yes, but this is still abnormal just because of carrying trucks and the price of fuel.

但是在與製造商交談時，我們甚至在我們的組合中增加了第三家 OEM 以試圖幫助我們，我們不會解決它，因為他們看到了未來的需求。因此，我們將在明年全年運送二手卡車，而不是今年的水平。所以平時，是的，但這仍然是不正常的，只是因為運載卡車和燃料價格。

The next question comes from the line of Jordan Alliger with Goldman Sachs.

下一個問題來自高盛的 Jordan Alliger。

Just a question on -- just overall thoughts on supply chain congestion. Obviously, the rails have certainly been part of it. Perhaps things are improving there. But where do you see the remaining roadblocks to maybe normalizing and hopefully improving box turns as we go from here?

只是一個問題——只是對供應鏈擁塞的總體看法。顯然，鐵軌肯定是其中的一部分。也許那裡的情況正在好轉。但是，當我們從這裡開始時，您在哪裡看到可能正常化並有望改善箱形轉彎的剩餘障礙？

So I'd say -- something I haven't really highlighted yet today is just customer inventory levels are higher. And that's certainly influencing some of the demand and ability to process and speed up asset utilization. So that's certainly a factor. I would also highlight that I think throughout the third quarter, international import volumes continued to -- could be somewhat of a logjam at the ports.

所以我想說——我今天還沒有真正強調的一點是客戶庫存水平更高。這肯定會影響處理和加速資產利用的一些需求和能力。所以這肯定是一個因素。我還要強調，我認為在整個第三季度，國際進口量繼續——可能在港口出現了一些僵局。

But as the quarter progressed, I think a lot of that business has cleaned up. But there still is a lot of noise in the system related to getting cargo out of containers, into warehouses, on shelves, to your home, all of those aspects. But they're -- the biggest factor to me right now is just inventories are elevated, and so customers are working hard to find a place to put inventory.

但隨著本季度的進展，我認為很多業務已經清理完畢。但是，系統中仍然存在很多與將貨物從集裝箱中取出、進入倉庫、貨架上、到你家以及所有這些方面相關的噪音。但他們 - 現在對我來說最大的因素是庫存增加，因此客戶正在努力尋找存放庫存的地方。

The next question comes from the line of Allison Poliniak with Wells Fargo.

下一個問題來自富國銀行的 Allison Poliniak。

Just want to go back to the comments around disciplined investment, coupled with not starving opportunities here. Just maybe a little more color or expansion on how you view investing through the cycle here. Is there a specific area of focus that you want to focus on here for that capital allocation? Just any color as we sort of we're working through this potential downturn on your investment capabilities.

只是想回到關於紀律投資的評論，再加上這裡沒有挨餓的機會。關於您如何看待這裡的整個週期的投資，可能會有更多的色彩或擴展。對於資本配置，您是否想在這里關註一個特定的重點領域？就像我們正在努力應對您投資能力的這種潛在低迷時的任何顏色。

Allison, we've been using a keyword here really since the pandemic started, and that word has been fluid. And that has been as our customers have been uncertain as to what the future has either been held for them or will be held for them in moving forward. They've really struggled to find out what was going to happen from a labor perspective, what would happen certainly with the rail congestion that you've heard Darren talk about. But also just overall from a consumer perspective, what people would be buying and how to put inventory in the right places.

艾莉森，自從大流行開始以來，我們一直在這裡使用一個關鍵詞，而且這個詞一直很流暢。那是因為我們的客戶一直不確定未來是為他們所持有的，或者在他們前進的過程中將會為他們所持有的。他們真的很難從勞工的角度找出會發生什麼，你聽到達倫談到的鐵路擁堵肯定會發生什麼。但也只是從消費者的角度來看，人們會購買什麼以及如何將庫存放在正確的位置。

I think we've done a great job over the last nearly 3 years of making sure that we stay fluid. We stay fluid in our conversations with our customers, and that's going to continue. As you heard John mentioned in the prepared remarks, and then you've heard that throughout each of the segment presidents, we're going to continue to stay focused on creating value for our customers. We're going -- I've stated several times that I believe that the supply chain is the most inefficient at least that I can remember in several years. A big part of that's been from the pandemic.

我認為在過去的近 3 年裡，我們在確保我們保持流暢方面做得很好。我們在與客戶的對話中保持流暢，這將繼續下去。正如您在準備好的講話中聽到約翰提到的那樣，然後您已經聽說，在每個部門總裁中，我們將繼續專注於為我們的客戶創造價值。我們要走了——我已經多次說過，我相信供應鍊是最低效的，至少在我記憶中的幾年裡。其中很大一部分來自大流行。

So we're going to be focused on taking costs out of the equation for our customers across all 5 of our segments where we can do that and sharing back with our customers in that cost while continuing to maintain our margin targets within each of the 5 different segments. So that fluid response to our customers, we're having to adapt more quickly, be more agile to the process.

因此，我們將專注於為我們所有 5 個細分市場的客戶消除成本，在我們可以做到這一點的地方，並與我們的客戶分享該成本，同時繼續將我們的利潤目標保持在 5 個細分市場中的每一個不同的細分市場。因此，對客戶的流暢響應，我們必須更快地適應，對流程更加敏捷。

Our capital allocation process will continue to follow the exact same way that we have done over the last 5 years. But it will be with what I would tell you from a people and overall capacity perspective. We've been very offensive over the last year or 2, making sure that we are prepared and ready for our customers. This is going to give us a chance to take a little bit more of a breadth and be a little more structured discipline, staying in tune and in line with what the market is doing.

我們的資本分配過程將繼續遵循我們過去 5 年所做的完全相同的方式。但這將是我從人員和整體能力的角度告訴你的。在過去的一兩年裡，我們一直非常冒犯，確保我們為客戶做好準備。這將使我們有機會採取更多的廣度和更有條理的紀律，與市場保持一致並與市場保持一致。

The next question is from the line of David Zazula with Barclays.

下一個問題來自巴克萊銀行的大衛扎祖拉。

Maybe for Brad. I mean, this is the second straight quarter of sequential declines in J.B. Hunt 360 revenues. I know you talked about good activities. I guess, is that a sign of maturity in the program or customers being a little more selective in where they go looking for that type of activity? Or does it speak to the project volumes that you had talked about? Just if you could touch a little more on that.

也許對布拉德來說。我的意思是，這是 J.B. Hunt 360 收入連續第二個季度連續下降。我知道你談到了好的活動。我想，這是該計劃成熟的標誌，還是客戶在尋找此類活動時更有選擇性？或者它是否與您談到的項目量有關？只是如果你能再談一點。

Yes, David. Shelley just spoke about being fluid, and really what we saw at the very end of Q2 and we spoke of it in our second quarter and we saw more of that in Q3 is really just the downward pressure and reduction in overall spot volumes that we see inside of the marketplace. There's no secret to the downward pressure that, that's had on rates, in particular there, more pronounced than we historically see.

是的，大衛。雪萊剛剛談到流動性，實際上是我們在第二季度末看到的，我們在第二季度談到了這一點，我們在第三季度看到的更多實際上只是我們看到的下行壓力和整體現貨量的減少市場內。下行壓力已經不是什麼秘密了，這對利率，特別是那裡的利率，比我們歷史上看到的更為明顯。

In my prepared comments, I referenced the term several times, pivot. Others call it the flip, but we're going from this tight capacity market to a much looser capacity market. And that's being driven somewhat by a softening in volumes that are -- we see, first and foremost, inside of brokerage.

在我準備好的評論中，我多次引用了這個詞，pivot。其他人稱之為翻轉，但我們正在從這個緊張的產能市場走向一個更加寬鬆的產能市場。這在一定程度上是由交易量疲軟推動的——我們首先看到的是經紀業務內部。

But from a fundamental standpoint, we do feel like our investments inside of J.B. Hunt 360, and I would say that many times, it often gets linked specifically to ICS. It's important that everybody on the call understands that it is a product and a value for our entire organization. And we see several data points that it spins off that value inside of Intermodal, inside of Dedicated and even inside of JBT with 360box.

但從基本的角度來看，我們確實覺得我們在 J.B. Hunt 360 內部的投資，而且我想說很多次，它通常與 ICS 相關聯。重要的是，通話中的每個人都明白它是我們整個組織的產品和價值。我們看到幾個數據點，它在多式聯運內部、專用內部甚至是帶有 360box 的 JBT 內部剝離了該值。

And so those are the areas where we do feel like it's a longer play for us. It's not a 1-month or 1-quarter play, and we're just navigating this current environment the best we can. It's a fight out there for volume in the brokerage space. And I don't think that's any secret. But we know that, that will course correct at some point in time. We'll see some exits in the marketplace. There's already data points that reveal that capacity is leaving and likely more of it to come depending on how significant the downward trends are. And so we continue to feel confident. We continue to make investment both in the technology of 360 and also our people.

所以這些是我們確實覺得這對我們來說是一場漫長的比賽的領域。這不是一個 1 個月或 1 個季度的遊戲，我們只是盡我們所能在當前的環境中導航。在經紀領域，這是一場爭奪交易量的鬥爭。而且我認為這不是什麼秘密。但我們知道，這在某個時間點當然會正確。我們將在市場上看到一些退出。已經有數據表明產能正在流失，而且可能還會有更多產能流失，具體取決於下降趨勢的重要性。所以我們繼續感到自信。我們繼續對 360 的技術和我們的員工進行投資。

The next question comes from the line of Ken Hoexter with Bank of America.

下一個問題來自美國銀行的 Ken Hoexter。

And I guess just to clarify, I did turn on the Yankee game for this, so excited to be here. Nick, great job at Dedicated. But sorry, Brad Delco, just a quick one for Darren also. You took on a lot of boxes that you ordered a while ago into a peak season that didn't exist, it seems like. Can you remind us your thoughts on taking on capacity now versus the ability to get fluidity or increased turnover, what the impact is on margins and your thoughts then into '23 on margins? I'm just trying to contrast that with John's comments earlier about increased caution.

我想澄清一下，我確實為此打開了洋基隊的比賽，很高興來到這裡。尼克，在 Dedicated 做得很好。但對不起，布拉德德爾科，也只是給達倫的一個快速的。你拿了很多你不久前訂購的盒子到一個不存在的旺季，看起來像。您能否提醒我們您對現在承擔產能與獲得流動性或增加營業額的能力的想法，對利潤率的影響以及您對 23 年利潤率的想法？我只是想將其與約翰早些時候關於增加謹慎的評論進行對比。

Well, certainly, we onboarded a lot. We announced an expansion of our equipment as we move into the next 3 to 5 years. We made that big announcement back in March. We've onboarded equipment as the year has gone on. And certainly, peak season volumes aren't where we would have anticipated them to be just, I don't know, 4 or 5 months ago. Certainly would have anticipated stronger volumes.

好吧，當然，我們加入了很多。隨著我們進入未來 3 到 5 年，我們宣布擴大我們的設備。我們早在三月份就宣布了這一重大消息。隨著時間的流逝，我們已經加入了設備。當然，旺季銷量並不是我們預期的那樣，我不知道，4 或 5 個月前。當然會預期更大的銷量。

Peak season this year just doesn't appear to be much of an event, I'll just say it like that, while we're still experiencing growth. As we go into next year, onboarding equipment will continue to run at a pace where our growth is supporting. Now as we get velocity improvements, that's unlocking capacity in our existing fleet and will have us really studying how quickly to onboard that equipment as we move into next year.

今年的旺季似乎不是什麼大事，我就這麼說吧，而我們仍在經歷增長。隨著我們進入明年，入職設備將繼續以我們的增長支持的速度運行。現在，隨著速度的提高，這將釋放我們現有機隊的容量，並將讓我們真正研究進入明年時該設備的裝載速度。

Now at the same time, if it's -- if there's an opportunity to onboard equipment for whatever reason at a cost benefit to us, then we may choose to do that so that we can be a little more agile with our customer demand, to be responsive as we would anticipate some customers to experience challenges related to service that they're receiving from other carriers all trying to find a slot on our competing Western rail carrier.

現在同時，如果有機會以任何理由以對我們有利的方式安裝設備，那麼我們可能會選擇這樣做，以便我們可以更加靈活地滿足客戶需求，成為響應迅速，因為我們預計一些客戶會遇到與他們從其他承運人那裡獲得的服務相關的挑戰，他們都試圖在我們競爭的西方鐵路承運人上找到一個位置。

So we do absolutely anticipate an opportunity to grow from that scenario. And having equipment available and ready for that opportunity is one of the core important strategies for our -- the next year. I'm not going to answer margin questions on that, Ken. I'm sorry, it's just not something we're going to do.

因此，我們絕對期待從這種情況下成長的機會。擁有可用的設備並為這個機會做好準備是我們明年的核心重要戰略之一。肯，我不打算回答這個問題。對不起，這不是我們要做的事情。

Ken, it's Shelley...

肯，是雪萊……

That was worth a try.

那值得一試。

Ken, it's Shelley. Let me add one thing to that well. I think you heard Darren earlier -- you heard Darren say earlier that ROIC is our focus. And we've made sure through 2021 and 2022 that for our customers, that they could have an indifferent answer if they were to hold our boxes. And so for us, from a return perspective, us bringing in that equipment, if you think about the problems we had from a railroad congestion and also from our customers not being able to unload our equipment, I think I would suggest that our volumes would be negative at this point based on those 2 factors.

肯，是雪萊。讓我補充一件事。我想你之前聽說過 Darren——你之前聽說過 Darren 說過 ROIC 是我們的重點。我們已經確保到 2021 年和 2022 年，對於我們的客戶來說，如果他們拿著我們的盒子，他們可能會有一個冷漠的答案。因此，對於我們來說，從退貨的角度來看，我們引進了這些設備，如果您考慮到我們因鐵路擁堵以及我們的客戶無法卸載我們的設備而遇到的問題，我想我會建議我們的數量將基於這兩個因素，此時為負數。

So us bringing in that equipment, being ready and prepared from an ROIC perspective, we are in an indifferent position. And so that allows to lean forward. Knowing that our customers' inventory issues and the rail congestion would be shorter term in nature, it would prepare us better for our long term. Knowing that we have such a great target and converting freight off the highway into the most efficient land transportation in North America.

所以我們引進了那些設備，從ROIC的角度準備好了，我們處於一個冷漠的位置。這樣就可以向前傾斜。知道我們客戶的庫存問題和鐵路擁堵在本質上是短期的，這將使我們為我們的長期做好準備。知道我們有如此偉大的目標，並將公路貨運轉變為北美最高效的陸路運輸。

And Ken, I'm just going add also give Darren a breather so he can catch a drink in between questions. He said it best. Just keep in mind where we get these boxes currently and the difficulty in getting them here. And so we have to plan accordingly to be able to be nimble. The other thing, as these are 20-year assets, they're priced and modeled from an ROIC perspective to include downturns throughout those 20 years. And so all of that is kind of taken into consideration informs us of our ability to go out and buy and add those units.

肯，我要補充一點，也讓達倫喘口氣，這樣他就可以在提問之間喝一杯。他說得最好。請記住我們目前從哪裡獲得這些盒子以及將它們帶到這裡的困難。所以我們必須相應地計劃才能變得靈活。另一件事是，由於這些是 20 年的資產，它們從 ROIC 的角度進行定價和建模，以包括這 20 年的經濟衰退。因此，所有這些都被考慮在內，讓我們知道我們有能力出去購買和添加這些單位。

The next question is from the line of Brian Ossenbeck with JPMorgan.

下一個問題來自摩根大通的 Brian Ossenbeck。

Just a quick one for Brad Hicks. Can you just clarify if there's anything else in ICS this quarter that has impacted margins? And you talked about spot and need to pivot, but I think there's also a mention of some higher claims and bad debt expense. So anything incremental on that would be helpful.

對布拉德希克斯來說只是一個快速的。您能否澄清一下本季度 ICS 中是否還有其他影響利潤率的因素？你談到了現場和需要調整，但我認為還提到了一些更高的索賠和壞賬費用。因此，任何增量都會有所幫助。

And then just looking longer term, as you think about Intermodal, historically hasn't been able to get volume and price at the same time or it's difficult to do that. So the secular growth has been a little harder to come by from our perspective. Do you think the investments that BN is doing expanding San Bernardino, you got Barstow, those are coming out in multiple years from now. But you've been doing more on transloading. Are these the sorts of things that can make the volume growth and the earnings growth behind that a little more durable, a little more secular than what we've been seeing, primarily driven by the truck market?

然後從長遠來看，當您考慮多式聯運時，歷史上無法同時獲得數量和價格，或者很難做到這一點。因此，從我們的角度來看，長期增長有點難以實現。你認為國陣正在擴大聖貝納迪諾的投資，你有巴斯托，這些投資將在多年後出現。但是您在轉載方面做得更多。這些東西是否可以使銷量增長和背後的收益增長比我們所看到的更持久、更長期，主要是由卡車市場推動的？

Yes, so I'll start. Thank you. We just called attention to a couple of categories, and we have some bad debt claims at points at times. Usually, they're pretty lumpy for us. And so over time, there wasn't anything that stood out if we look at the business in terms of years. But when we do have bankruptcies through customers that we do business with, and when that happens, it hits you all at once. And so I think we did see some of that in the third quarter. Not overconcerned as we look at a broader window of time and where we're at, not seeing any negative trends there per se. But when it does hit, it is a little bit more pronounced in a particular month or a particular quarter.

是的，所以我要開始了。謝謝你。我們只是提請注意幾個類別，有時我們會收到一些壞賬索賠。通常，它們對我們來說非常笨拙。因此，隨著時間的推移，如果我們以年為單位來看待業務，並沒有什麼突出的。但是，當我們確實通過與我們有業務往來的客戶破產時，當這種情況發生時，它會一下子打擊到你們所有人。所以我認為我們確實在第三季度看到了一些。當我們看到更廣泛的時間窗口和我們所處的位置時，不要過度擔心，本身沒有看到任何負面趨勢。但是當它確實發生時，它在特定月份或特定季度會更加明顯。

As it relates to the second part of your question on kind of what we're seeing in spots, we saw those continue to decline. Can't really say and I don't want to predict what the future is, so I don't know that we've officially reached bottom yet. I would say that it's somewhat stabilized in the more recent periods of weeks. But we also see other indices, for example, the AOTVI that would suggest that volume trends have continued to decelerate in October versus what we saw in September.

由於它與您問題的第二部分有關我們在現場看到的情況有關，我們看到這些繼續下降。真的不能說，我也不想預測未來是什麼，所以我不知道我們已經正式觸底了。我會說它在最近幾週內有所穩定。但我們也看到其他指數，例如 AOTVI，這表明 10 月份的成交量趨勢與 9 月份相比繼續減速。

And so that's where paying attention to every data point we can to try and get a read. The best thing that we can do is just stay as close to our customers to try and promote and grow on the contractual business side so that we're not as volatile per se in the spot market, and that's what our focus is going into bid season.

因此，這就是我們可以嘗試讀取的每個數據點的關注點。我們能做的最好的事情就是盡可能貼近我們的客戶，嘗試在合同業務方面進行推廣和發展，這樣我們就不會在現貨市場本身波動，這就是我們的重點競標季節。

Okay, I'll try to dive off into your question there, Brian, on Intermodal. I mean, clearly, in those years, 2015 maybe to 2020, you seem to have a lot of focus on whether or not we can grow both volume and price. Prior to that time, I think we had some success with that. And during that time window, there was a lot of choppiness related to our relationship with BNSF. There was PSR implementation, which in some ways, shifted some challenges from the railroads out to us. So just a lot of challenges related there.

好的，布萊恩，我將嘗試在多式聯運上深入探討您的問題。我的意思是，很明顯，在 2015 年到 2020 年的那些年裡，你似乎非常關注我們是否可以同時增加數量和價格。在此之前，我認為我們在這方面取得了一些成功。在那個時間窗口內，我們與 BNSF 的關係出現了很多不穩定因素。 PSR 的實施在某些方面將一些挑戰從鐵路轉移到了我們身上。因此，那裡有很多挑戰。

And as we move into the future, I think, our relationship with BNSF has never been stronger, and we feel very confident about the work that they are doing, and we are doing together to grow our Intermodal product. We would anticipate that the value proposition we deliver to our customers is also driving enough value to warrant the quality returns that both BNSF and J.B. Hunt would expect.

我認為，隨著我們走向未來，我們與 BNSF 的關係從未如此牢固，我們對他們所做的工作充滿信心，我們正在共同努力發展我們的多式聯運產品。我們預計，我們向客戶提供的價值主張也會帶來足夠的價值，以保證 BNSF 和 J.B. Hunt 所期望的質量回報。

All that being said, does that mean we get a rate increase? I don't know. I know that expansion of their footprint is good for our Intermodal business. And so we're very excited about all the projects that they have underway. And certainly transload opportunities are big for us and will continue to be important strategies that we work on together with the railroad.

說了這麼多，這是否意味著我們會加息？我不知道。我知道擴大他們的足跡對我們的多式聯運業務有利。因此，我們對他們正在進行的所有項目感到非常興奮。當然，轉運機會對我們來說很大，並將繼續成為我們與鐵路合作的重要戰略。

The next question comes from the line of Ravi Shanker with Morgan Stanley.

下一個問題來自摩根士丹利的 Ravi Shanker。

One short-term question for John. John, I think you said at the top of the call that some areas of the business may be opportune for correction. Can you just expand on that a little bit more what exactly you meant by that? And also, Shelley, congrats on the new position. Maybe I can ask you a longer-term question. What do you think are the biggest opportunities and risks ahead for J.B. Hunt over the next 5 to 10 years?

約翰的一個短期問題。約翰，我想你在電話會議的頂部說過，業務的某些領域可能是修正的好時機。您能否進一步擴展一下您的意思是什麼？而且，雪萊，祝賀新職位。也許我可以問你一個長期的問題。您認為 J.B. Hunt 在未來 5 到 10 年內面臨的最大機遇和風險是什麼？

Thanks, Ravi. I might try to take both of those. Let me just talk a little bit about the opportunities that we have. I think as the market is moving and our fluid approach, we recognized in some of the areas that we've invested in heavily, there's some rightsizing that we have to do. Brad talked a little bit about that in being more offensive with our customers and trying to make sure we're set up from a sales perspective, but then also looking at what is the 5-year plan around that business and making sure that we're more in tune with what the model would suggest.

謝謝，拉維。我可能會嘗試採取這兩個。讓我簡單談談我們所擁有的機會。我認為隨著市場的變化和我們靈活的方法，我們認識到在我們已經大量投資的一些領域，我們必須做一些適當的調整。布拉德談到了一點，他對我們的客戶更具攻擊性，並試圖確保我們從銷售的角度進行設置，但同時也看看圍繞該業務的 5 年計劃是什麼，並確保我們更符合模型的建議。

There are other areas of opportunity like what's happening in our maintenance. And that number for us, the amount of trucks that we actually have that we are holding is becoming more and more impactful to our bottom line. But it is allowing us to serve customers and we're staying in line with our customers from a price perspective. I think each 1 of the 5 segments have recognized where their opportunities are. Nick, I know, talked about Final Mile also in the beginning with our cost recovery efforts.

還有其他機會領域，例如我們的維護中正在發生的事情。對我們來說，這個數字，我們實際擁有的卡車數量對我們的利潤越來越有影響。但它使我們能夠為客戶服務，並且從價格的角度來看，我們與客戶保持一致。我認為 5 個細分市場中的每個細分市場都已經認識到他們的機會在哪裡。我知道，尼克在一開始也談到了我們的成本回收工作。

And I was just making sure that the great value we create for our customers that we're in alignment from a return perspective. And that's going to take us more than a quarter or even more than a few quarters. That's a longer-term strategy for us with our customers walking each one independently through that. So I feel like that is really our greatest opportunity.

我只是確保從回報的角度來看，我們為客戶創造的巨大價值是一致的。這將需要我們超過四分之一甚至超過幾個季度。這對我們來說是一項長期戰略，我們的客戶每個人都獨立完成。所以我覺得這真的是我們最大的機會。

I might add this. What I'm most excited about, our biggest opportunity is really to get the entire organization to understand the level of value we can create for our customers with our mode-agnostic approach. We have the best opportunity of anyone to give a customer an answer that is best for them in cost, service and capacity because we serve the entire supply chain in North America.

我可能會添加這個。我最興奮的是，我們最大的機會實際上是讓整個組織了解我們可以通過與模式無關的方法為客戶創造的價值水平。我們有最好的機會為客戶提供在成本、服務和容量方面最適合他們的答案，因為我們為北美的整個供應鏈提供服務。

And with 5 fairly healthy segments now with the growth trajectory, that really has a market for each one of them in a totally different number, totally different size than what it is today, we think we're just getting started. So I think I'm excited about our long-term opportunity for growth while maintaining our margin and being disciplined in the way that we conduct our business.

現在有 5 個相當健康的細分市場具有增長軌跡，每個細分市場的市場數量完全不同，規模與今天完全不同，我們認為我們才剛剛開始。因此，我認為我對我們的長期增長機會感到興奮，同時保持我們的利潤並在我們開展業務的方式上受到紀律處分。

Got it. If you can just address the correction comment, kind of what that was about?

知道了。如果您可以解決更正評論，那是什麼意思？

Say that one more time, Ravi.

再說一次，拉維。

The comment on the top of the call about the areas that are opportune for correction, kind of was that something specific or was that just a broad comment?

電話頂部關於適合進行更正的領域的評論，是具體的還是只是廣泛的評論？

Yes, I would say -- well, I would say we've tried to highlight this. Final Mile is one of the areas that we're focused still on. I think for ICS, staying long-term structured and disciplined in the long-term plan and just making sure our costs stay in line with that long-term plan. Those are probably the 2 areas I would focus.

是的，我會說——好吧，我會說我們試圖強調這一點。最後一英里是我們仍然關注的領域之一。我認為對於 ICS，在長期計劃中保持長期結構和紀律，並確保我們的成本與長期計劃保持一致。這些可能是我要關注的兩個領域。

The next question comes from the line of Ari Rosa with Credit Suisse.

下一個問題來自瑞士信貸的 Ari Rosa。

So I wanted to ask about rate trends on Dedicated. Obviously, we've seen spot rates come down quite a bit. Dedicated seems like it's been more resilient. Just wanted to see if you guys could address to what extent you think those 2 can remain decoupled as we think about 2023 and bid season is coming up.

所以我想問一下Dedicated的費率趨勢。顯然，我們已經看到即期匯率大幅下降。專注似乎更有彈性。只是想看看你們是否可以解決您認為在我們考慮 2023 年和投標季節即將到來時這兩個可以保持分離的程度。

Yes. Thank you. I'll take that. Most of our business, I believe the exact number is about 78% of our business in Dedicated is tied to some index or some contractual annual increase, and we've been very successful in getting those. And in addition to the ones that do not have indexes, we were able to get rates this year as needed for driver pay and various things.

是的。謝謝你。我會接受的。我們的大部分業務，我相信確切的數字是我們在 Dedicated 的業務中大約 78% 與某些指數或某些合同年度增長相關，我們在獲得這些方面非常成功。除了沒有索引的那些之外，我們今年還能夠根據需要獲得司機工資和各種東西的費率。

So what the spot market does up and down doesn't really affect us. It may change while we sell because there's a lot of capacity demands that we see, but we sign up long-term deals. And so when we sell those, the way we sell those, it's for the long term, not quarter-to-quarter or anything like that. So we view it as having very little impact on us from the spot market.

所以現貨市場的漲跌並沒有真正影響到我們。在我們出售時它可能會發生變化，因為我們看到了很多容量需求，但我們簽署了長期協議。因此，當我們出售這些產品時，我們出售產品的方式是長期的，而不是按季度或類似的方式出售。所以我們認為它對現貨市場的影響很小。

There are no additional questions at this time. I will pass it back to the management team for closing remarks.

目前沒有其他問題。我會將其傳回給管理團隊以供結束髮言。

Thank you, and thank you for spending time with us on this quarterly call. I think you heard us talk a lot about the caution that we have. But I want to make sure that I talk about why we've mentioned caution. For us, caution is just a readiness to pivot. It's a readiness to be available for our customers and understanding what's happening in the market and how we can best prepare ourselves and be ready.

謝謝你，感謝你在這個季度電話會議上與我們一起度過。我想你聽到我們談論了很多關於我們的謹慎態度。但我想確保我談論我們為什麼提到謹慎。對我們來說，謹慎只是準備轉向。準備好為我們的客戶服務並了解市場上正在發生的事情以及我們如何最好地做好準備並做好準備。

With the executive management team having over 25 years' experience at J.B. Hunt, I think we've seen this before. We've seen signs similar, and we want to make sure that we can pivot with our customers and make sure that we continue to create great shareholder value.

執行管理團隊在 J.B. Hunt 擁有超過 25 年的經驗，我想我們以前見過這種情況。我們已經看到了類似的跡象，我們希望確保我們能夠與客戶一起調整併確保我們繼續創造巨大的股東價值。

But might I say that this was our best quarter in our history. It is maybe more muted because we think about that readiness that we're attempting to really solve for. It was the best quarter for JBI. It's the first time DCS hit over $100 million in operating income. And so we're proud of the work that we've done. And I think that you see the results overall.

但我可以說這是我們歷史上最好的季度。它可能更加沉默，因為我們考慮了我們正在嘗試真正解決的那種準備情況。這是 JBI 最好的季度。這是 DCS 的營業收入首次超過 1 億美元。因此，我們為我們所做的工作感到自豪。我認為你看到了整體結果。

And I also think that you see our diversified portfolio and making sure that we are mode-agnostic with our customers. But speaking of our customers, sharing improvements with our customers is good. It's good for them. It's good for our business. And I think that's going to be important for us as we continue to move forward. The supply chain is inefficient, and we want to help it become a more efficient supply chain.

而且我還認為您看到了我們多元化的產品組合，並確保我們與客戶的模式無關。但說到我們的客戶，與我們的客戶分享改進是好的。這對他們有好處。這對我們的業務有好處。我認為隨著我們繼續前進，這對我們來說很重要。供應鏈效率低下，我們希望幫助它成為更高效的供應鏈。

We're a growth company. And we have a complete and total understanding of the importance of ROIC. That will be our focus. We want to create more value for our customers by really trusting the people that take care of them every day.

我們是一家成長型公司。我們對ROIC的重要性有一個完整而全面的了解。這將是我們的重點。我們希望通過真正信任每天照顧他們的人來為我們的客戶創造更多價值。

And so I close by saying thank you to the nearly 38,000 people. They work hard every single day on behalf of our customers. We're going to continue to remain disciplined in our approach, but make sure that we are taking advantage of opportunities that are present with our customers and serving them with more value. With that, looking forward to speaking with you on the next earnings call.

最後，我要感謝近 38,000 人。他們每天都代表我們的客戶努力工作。我們將繼續在我們的方法中保持自律，但要確保我們正在利用與客戶一起存在的機會並為他們提供更多價值。有了這個，期待在下一次財報電話會議上與您交談。

That concludes today's conference call. Thank you. You may now disconnect your lines.

今天的電話會議到此結束。謝謝你。您現在可以斷開線路。